I Can Be Your Hero
by NightIsBlind2006
Summary: A suspect from a two year old case, another CSI kidnapped. In a race against time and a man gone insane, who will win? The hunter, or the hunted?
1. Prologue

_Tonight's the night. I'm going to tell her tonight. Swear it this time, I'll tell her. _The words flew around his brain, crashing into one another and forming a huge muddle in the middle of his mind. From the outside, you'd never have seen it; he was sitting behind his desk, staring at the wall, a habit he had begun lately when he wanted to think. Today in particular, he was thinking of a certain stunning brunette- currently visiting a hospital to pick up some evidence pertaining to her case, the only case of the night- and what he was planning on telling her. It was something he should have told her long ago; the moment he saw her, even. It had taken him this long to overcome his fear. Not of her; never of her. It was a fear deeper than that, a fear of everything that had anything to do with love: the rejection, the heartache, sleepless nights, all things he had heard talk of and never taken into account- until he met her.

"Dr. Grissom?"

He turned slowly, knowing it was Judy, the receptionist- she was one of the few who still called him "Dr. Grissom".

"Yes, Judy?"

"Message for you, sir." She looked rather frightened, Grissom noticed. At the same time, he was a little annoyed at being interrupted.

"I always pick up messages when I leave or come in."

"It's important, sir. CSI Sidle-" She didn't even get a chance to finish her sentence before Grissom was up and had the note in his hand.

_'Dr. Grissom. What a pleasure to speak to you again- or write, as it were. I'm sure you remember me; if you don't, you will soon. Something very dear was taken from me, Doctor, and by my own hand. Now I have something very dear to you. Will you give me the order to kill her, Doctor, when she screams in pain? You'll never catch me, you see. I'll kill her, I'll kill anyone who tries to rescue her, and then I'll kill myself. You were right- it's painful to have no one. Get ready for a phone call, Dr. Grissom.'_

Grissom stared at the note. The words rang a bell-

"The doctor-!" He ran from the room, leaving Judy staring after him, hoping that everything would turn out alright.


	2. Chapter One : Catch Me If You Can

Dont own CSI. Never will, unfortunately.

* * *

Catherine, Nick and Sofia all looked up as Grissom burst into the room, panting and looking for the world like he was going crazy.

"Griss?" Catherine asked tentatively. "Are you alright?"

"Sara." It was all he needed to say; they could tell something had happened to her.

"What happened?" Nick asked. Only Warrick noticed how tense he was.

The slightly out of breath supervisor just dropped a piece of paper on the table, nodding at Catherine to read it.

"'_Dr. Grissom. What a pleasure to speak to you again- or write, as it were. I'm sure you remember me; if you don't, you will soon. Something very dear was taken from me, Doctor, and by my own hand. Now I have something very dear to you. Will you give me the order to kill her, Doctor, when she screams in pain? You'll never catch me, you see. I'll kill her, I'll kill anyone who tries to rescue her, and then I'll kill myself. You were right- it's painful to have no one. Get ready for a phone call, Dr. Grissom.'" _She looked up. "That case, the girl who looked like Sara, that doctor?" Grissom nodded.

"He said expect a call, Griss, that means-"

The room was filled with the sound of a beeping pager. The sound, normally just annoying but useful, suddenly seemed frantic and urgent.

"That means, it's probably him," Grissom finished grimly. He headed back out the door and down the hall toward the main desk.

* * *

"Grissom."

"Ah, Dr. Grissom. So kind of you to join me."

"Get to the point."

"The point, Dr. Grissom, is that I have your beautiful Ms. Sidle right here next to me. I believe she'd like to say something to you." There was a bump in the background, and the sound of the receiver being shoved at someone- presumably Sara.

"Griss, don't give in to him, don't come, he'll kill anyone... oh God, don't tell Nick, he'll-" her voice was cut off abruptbly, and Grissom had a few seconds to wonder what she had been about to say before she was back. "Check traffic cams on the corner of Warner and Grand-" and then the doctor's saccharine voice was back.

"Ah, witty, that one. Fights a lot more than Debbie did, too. You should be proud, Dr. Grissom. Go ahead, take her advice, check the cameras. I'm waiting."

* * *

He was back sooner than anyone expected, with an even grimmer expression on his voice, if that was conceivable. "He called from a phone booth, presumably on the corner of Warner and Grand, if Sara's information was correct," he told the waiting team.

"You talked to her?" Catherine asked excitedly.

"She talked at me, more like. She told me not to go find her, then he must have done something to her, because she told me to check the cameras on the corner. Warrick, I want you to go get the tapes right now. Cath, go with him and check the phone booth for anything and everything. I have a feeling that Sara might have left a clue of some sort, maybe something that won't be there long, otherwise she wouldn't have risked telling me where they were instead of letting us trace it."

"Got it." Both CSIs left the room at a jog, obviously eager to get moving.

"What about me?" Deep down, he knew he wasn't going to get much- as much as he said 'don't get personally involved', Grissom had claimed this case the second Sara's name was mentioned.

"You stay here, Nicky. You can help Archie with the tape as soon as he gets it."

The break room door opened and closed again, leaving Nick on his own to run over everything in his mind.

* * *

"Okay...phone booth," Catherine muttered to herself as Warrick parked the car. She was out almost before the engine was off, heading straight for the plexiglass shape. She took her camera out almost immediatly, noticing a smudged drop of blood on the handle. "We got blood, Warrick," she called to him.

"Good. Let's hope it's not Sara's."

Catherine worked steadily, collecting everything she could- finger prints on the phone, blood from the floor and the door handle. Then she noticed a small piece of paper in the corner under the phone. It was folded and merely said 'CSI' on the part that was visible. Catherine remembered to snap a photo, then reached for it and unfolded it.

'_I know that wherever I leave this, you'll find it, because it'll mean I let someone know. This guy's crazy. Be VERY careful, guys, this man has nothing to lose and he's planning to kill himself anyway, he won't care if it's him that does it or a police officer. As far as he told me, we're going somewhere that Griss knows well, or that the doctor thinks he knows well, anyway._

_Whoever finds this, I'm sorry for everything I've ever done to make you mad or anything, and if he does kill me, tell everyone that I'll miss them... especially Nick. Let him know it's not his fault."_

Catherine closed her eyes and silently sent a prayer up that Sara would be all right. _You're forgiven, Sara, now let's find you! _She thought. _At least I found it, not Grissom...I can make sure Nick finds out that she mentioned him._

"Cath?"

Warrick's voice behind her made her jump slightly.

"What's up? Bit jumpy."

"This is the second time in a year we've had a CSI kidnapped, Warrick, of course I'm jumpy." She held the note out to him. "She left this." She waited while Warrick read it over.

"_Especially _Nick?" Warrick asked, a half-suspicious, half-knowing grin spreading across his face.

"Either there's something between them that made her write that, or something happened earlier that would make him feel guilty about this," Catherine summarised. "We can talk about that on the way back to the lab. You get the tapes?"

"Yeah, right here," Warrick said, patting the evidence bag he was carrying, back in business mode. "Let's get goin', Cath."

* * *

"Nicky!"

He turned when he heard Catherine's voice following him down the hall.

"Did you get the tapes?"

"You bet we did. We also found this." She was holding a piece of paper out as she walked quickly to catch up with him. "Gloves, though, bud, it's evidence."

Pulling his gloves on, he took the note, recognising Sara's handwriting immediatly. Catherine watched carefully as his eyes scanned the page and looked up.

"This was in the phone booth?"

"Yeah, Nicky." She paused for a moment, then reached a decision. "Nick, why would she say 'tell him it's not his fault'?"

"I wanted to go with her, and she said no. I didn't push it." Nick said quietly.

"Nick, there's no way you could have known."

"Let me have the tapes. Me and Archie need to get started." Wordlessly, Catherine handed them over. As he headed down the hall to the AV lab, a tiny smile flitted across her face.

"The evidence never lies," she told the empty hall.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Archie was beginning to think whether Grissom was mental, telling Nick to help with the tapes. Since they had found the right place, he and Nick had watched the scene at least five times, and each time, the CSI looked more and more like he wanted to murder the man who was roughhandling Sara.

"How's it going, guys?"

It was Sofia.

"Well," Archie began, rewinding the tape to the point when Sara was pulled out of the car, "they got there at nine forty-seven. Sara seems a little worse for the wear, not much though- my guess is that he kept her in the backseat somehow, notice how it takes him almost fifteen seconds to reach in, then come out and pull her after him."

"Right."

"They're in the phonebooth, he's dialing. Sara drops something, looks like paper. She's very strong, that one, look at her stance, she's got the defiant stare and everything. Now he's putting her on. She's saying whatever she said to Grissom first of all, then the doc grabs the receiver and whispers something to her. She says something back, he hits her, she glares and talks really fast into the phone. I imagine that was the location, cause this is where it gets weird." Archie paused the video and zoomed in a little. "He looks happy, like he wanted her to say whatever it was she said. He's managing to hold her with one hand but he's talking like he's not in a hurry, which he should be because she's sturggling like crazy. He hangs up. This is the part that's worst for Sara. He grabs her by the hair, and you can tell it's hard. He puts her in the car and the car heads off along Grand."

Sofia nodded, then glanced back at Nick.

"Come with me, Nick. Let's go track this bastard down."

Watching them leave, Archie silently resolved to never try to kidnap a member of the CSI team.

"That video wasn't in color, was it?" Sofia asked the silently seething man beside her.

He shook his head. "It wasn't. Warrick asked around, though. Couple people mentioned seeing the car and some kind of _disturbance_," he said, making quotation marks in the air. "Most of them told Rick that they thought it was a lover's quarral. A fucking lover's quarral, you could tell from the grainy security camera tape that she had cuts and was bleeding, you'd think someone would have the brains to call the cops."

"It's Vegas, Nick. They probably see weird things on a daily basis."

"Maybe...but _Sara_.."

"Yes, Sara. Listen to me, Nick. We've got to focus. When you went missing, everyone focused. This is the same. You can rant all y'like about what an asshole the general population is _after_ we find her. Right now, our task is finding her."

He didn't answer. He didn't have to; she could tell that what she'd said had gotten through to him.

"Now, what did Warrick's witnesses say about the car?"

* * *

R&R if y'like, chapter two will be up ASAP :) Small note- I have no idea if Grand or Warner or any of the streets I'll mention in this story are actually real; most of them will just be random street names, as I've never been to Vegas and can't remember any of the streets mentioned in the show. 


End file.
